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The Construction and Energy Group at the University of Zaragoza is designing a sustainable housing prototype that produces more energy than it consumes and generates no waste. The Pi House, as has been baptized, will be exhibited in Madrid in September next year at the Solar Decathlon 2012.

The project is directed by Professor José Antonio Turégano and coordinated by Dr. Alejandro del Amo. Both belong to the Building and Energy Group and have the collaboration of a multidisciplinary team of architects, engineers, biologists, chemists and designers of the University of Zaragoza,

The prototype currently under design, will set out the Solar Decathlon Europe 2012 (Madrid, 3-9 September), international competition in which universities around the world have to design, build and use energy self-sufficient homes, connected to the grid, taking all their energy from the sun and are equipped with technology that allows more efficient use of that energy.

During the last phase of the competition, the house opens to the public at the same time develop the ten races that make up the contest: architecture, engineering and construction, energy efficiency, balance of power, welfare conditions, operation of the house communication and social awareness, industrialization and market feasibility, innovation and sustainability. The competition will be three types of punctuation: to complete tasks, in situ measurement and valuation of the jury.

The Pi house, a single-family housing will have a cylindrical shape, a shape that was chosen because it allows you to build more square feet less interior wall exposed to the elements.

It is divided into two floors with an area of ​​70 square meters on the ground floor and 50 square meters in the first. Downstairs is the living, rooms, kitchen and bathroom and living room, outside the walls, a small garden with two lakes that are involved in the constructed wetland, a system of sewage disposal through wetlands where they develop certain aquatic plants.

The first floor, with large free spans, reserves in the middle of its space for installations and elsewhere as a covered terrace, as on it will have a roof covered with photovoltaic panels, with nearly 10 KW of power. This first floor solar orbit following the path, so as to capture more sunlight, thereby increasing the production of photovoltaic solar energy.

The creators of the Pi House that are designed as ecological housing, sustainable, accessible and affordable in the future, plan to install the prototype at the University of Zaragoza, where it can be used as a test for practice, for researchers and companies.